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Appeared on: Wednesday, January 04, 2012
TiVo and AT&T Enter Into a Patent Licensing Arrangement

AT&T will pay TiVo at least $215 million through June
2018, becoming the latest TV signal provider to settle
a patent lawsuit involving the digital video recorder
pioneer.

TiVo has settled its pending patent litigation with
AT&T and the companies have entered into a mutual
patent licensing arrangement. Under the terms of the
settlement, AT&T agreed to pay TiVo an initial payment
of $51 million, followed by recurring quarterly
guaranteed payments through June 2018, totaling $164
million, which together yield minimum payments of $215
million. In addition to these minimum payments, AT&T
will pay incremental recurring per subscriber monthly
license fees through July 2018 should AT&T's DVR
subscriber base exceed certain levels.

As part of the settlement, TiVo and AT&T agreed to
dismiss all pending litigation between the companies
with prejudice. The parties also entered into a cross
license of their respective patent portfolios in the
advanced television field.

"We are extremely pleased to reach an agreement with
AT&T, which acknowledges the value of our intellectual
property," said Tom Rogers, CEO and President of TiVo.
"This settlement, on the heels of our recent
operational success that has resulted in the growth of
TiVo's overall subscriber base, is another major
accomplishment for TiVo and we believe a great outcome
for our shareholders. The combination of guaranteed
payments and future additional fees paid to TiVo in the
event that AT&T's pay TV business continues to grow
in-line with consensus analyst expectations, represents
hard-earned compensation for our IP enforcement
efforts. The settlement also provides us rights to
innovate TiVo products and services under license from
AT&T and allows us to avoid significant legal expenses
that we expect would have been incurred by us during
and after trial."

A similar $500 million settlement was reached by TiVo
in May with satellite TV company Dish Network Corp. and
its set-top box provider, EchoStar Corp.